Our move to the ex-Vitra showroom has been transformational, its vast shop front presenting an exciting opportunity to show the world who we are and what we do. Watching the world go by is also a constant reminder of how our work shapes, and is shaped by, the city and the communities we serve.

Our window graphics, designed by architect June Tong, encourage passersby to look inside. A charming series of colourful line drawn huts, they recall an H\B tradition of incorporating small buildings within larger ones.

We promote an activity-based working model, supported by technology, in all our workplace projects. This means listening and understanding how staff want to work and providing the right setting for them to carry out a variety of tasks comfortably. We have quiet pods for focused working, large desks and meeting rooms for team tasks, hack spaces for collaborative work and model making and high back sofas and social spaces to get to know each other better.

The Canteen is our working experiment, our laboratory. It’s a place where we host talks and seminars, workshops, supper clubs and sunset yoga. We have purposely kept it unfinished, the intent is to allow it to be a flexible space to support a range of activities for both our own needs and the wider communities.

The ground floor also features touch down desks and a large collaboration table. From street level you can look down into a light-filled basement that houses the model shop, more meeting rooms, workspaces and a neighbourhood hub. And up to the ‘shop floor’ where colleagues and clients can seamlessly move between analogue and digital worlds.

The space feels generous but being stacked over three floors means its a challenge to make people feel connected. The single kitchen is deliberate, everyone has to come up or down to use it and the queue for the coffee machine on the long stainless-steel counter is a great place to catch up. The elegant staircase has been given a new lease of life and this too acts as a social mixer.

Our Wild foyer features the Hut, another small building within a larger one, this time clad in an artwork of block-printed planks by artist Richard Woods. Inspiration for the building came from research conducted for Argent on the office of the future, which revealed how temporary isolation aids creativity. And from the cabins and huts of creatives such as Le Corbusier and Dylan Thomas.

Noisy on the outside, it provides a little quiet respite from the city and the studio to anyone who needs it.